


Crying in Deep Red

by Corinne K (Corinne_K)



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Inspired by We are X, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Rin as Yoshiki, Visual Kei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 22:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18061118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corinne_K/pseuds/Corinne%20K
Summary: A piano at the center of the world. A colossal stadium like an ancient colosseum. Caged like a lion. It’s the loneliest place of all.Tokyo: Legendary rock band reunites for 2020 games opening after decade of silenceWhy do I have to do this when you’re not here?





	Crying in Deep Red

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for light trigger warning / spoiler

A piano at the center of the world. A colossal stadium like an ancient colosseum. Caged like a lion. It’s the loneliest place of all.

**_Tokyo: Legendary rock band reunites for 2020 games opening after decade of silence_ **

_Why do I have to do this when you’re not here?_

 

Tokyo 2020.

“Will we still be here then?”

“Rin-chan, quit being dramatic. Of course, we will.”

“Well, in that case, I want to open it.”

“Open what?”

“The games, Haru! We should open the games. Japan owes us that much.”

 

Sousuke was the first man down.

**_Yamazaki out: fired bassist still tight lipped, Matsuoka declines to comment_ **

Sousuke is – was? – his best friend, firing him is like cutting off both arms. He does it in front of the others and their manager, at the seaside studio they rented to record their third album. There is silence, then Haru dashes out.

 

“All you think about is yourself!” Haru screams over the sound of waves.

“I had to do it. He crossed the line.”

“Shut up!”

“Haru, listen...”

“Take it back!”

“I can’t. Listen, let’s just forget about this, ok? We’re going overseas... Haru, we made it. it’s all we’ve ever wanted...”

“Leave me.”

“Haru...”

“Go. I can’t look at you right now.”

Rin walks back towards the studio, a western style chateau with a private pier that gets surrounded by water during high tide. The sun has long sunken below the horizon and only the faintest light remains. The tide will soon isolate them for the night. Haru will have to stay somewhere else. It’s probably for the best.

Rin trails through the cold sand. Haru begins to play. The sound of the erhu grows thinner and thinner until it’s but a hiss in the wind. A strange heaviness lodges itself in his chest. He keeps walking.

Next morning, Haru is nowhere to be found. They walk the beach, swim as far as they can in the gelid Autumn waters.

 

**_One more down: Hope dwindles as searches for Haruka lead to nowhere_ **

 

Days later, a broken erhu washes onto the shore.

 

**_Tottori: Haruka fan found drowned in pool after searches for guitarist are cancelled_ **

 

 

“The next song is _Crying in Deep Red_.”

The crowd erupts in a thunderous cheer. How quick they forget.

Rin knows these notes by heart, they are part of his soul, a broken lament, born of the endless pain.

Rei marches through the catwalk, a beautiful, elegant genius, a violin wedged between his shoulder and jaw.

Maybe it’s the stage lights, or the side effects of the painkillers, but Rin can almost see Haru in the young virtuoso.

_No. No. No._

_Haru can never be replaced. He cannot live in another because he was life itself._

Rin drops his forehead on the piano, barely aware of the aborted sound of jumbled notes.

The music goes on. Violin, bass, guitar. Somewhere on the same stage Makoto is taking a swig of water, Nagisa is waving at the fans and Sousuke stands proud and redeemed like the pillar of kindness he’s always been.

Everything goes blank, a breathless agony. The music, the stage, his band mates, the audience, the crew, the whole world. Only pain remains.

_Haru is not here._

But then, through the impenetrable fog comes a voice. The weight of a hand at the back of his neck kneads his tendons. _Makoto_.

_You only think of yourself._

_Neurotic piece of shit._

_No. No. No._

_Gotta play._ _You know this. One note, then the next. A metronome in the dark._

_Pull your shit together._

_For them. Not for you. Not anymore. For them. For them. For Haru._

Rin begins to play. The stadium roars to life.

 

There was always some kind of change in the fabric of the world every time he played. It was mesmerizing and unreal. Even now, years after that night on the beach, whenever Rin pulls one of their old records and listens, sound blasting off his headphones, alone in his seaside house, naked on his porch, feeling the salt hit his wounds, straight from the sea – there is always something new.

_Will there come a time when it’s all the same, over and over again?_

_No._

 

Tokyo Dome. They are playing their hit single. It goes from melodic, to full blast, to solo. Haru is killing that guitar. Tendrils of light shoot through his fingers. His long hair is swept sideways, blue highlights teasing deep black. He’s wearing that Chinese robe of his, royal blue wild silk, the one that makes him look like fucking Ip Man with an electric guitar. So fucking gorgeous. How Rin somehow acquired the privilege of fucking this deity he does not know. He smashes the drums with all he’s got. His body is starting to crack from the exertion and the sheer madness but he does not care. Haru stops mid solo and tosses the guitar aside. No one expects this. Only the two of them know what’s to happen next. Haru signals the stage hand. The boy comes running with the small instrument. Sousuke keeps playing, setting the rhythm even as his teal eyes follow the movements around him. Nagisa smirks, he’s figured it out. Haru takes the small wooden object, holds it against his thigh, then grasps for the bow. The audience goes mental. The birth of a fucking legend.

 

The five of them heave and sweat, they join their hands. Rei is still holding the violin, so their small human chain absorbs the classic instrument. They take a bow, then another, then another. The spotlight travels from the stage to the other side of the pitch. A small figure holds a torch. Ikuya Kirishima, former Olympic swimmer, a gazelle in red and white, brings the ancient fire to the top of the palanquin and lights the pyre. Let the games begin.

 

“This won’t do”, the doctor says. “You can’t keep playing like this.”

It was just a one-off, he tells himself, but his body won’t let him lie. The backlash from the months of rehearsals comes in the shape of crippling pain.

“It’s not too late. You can still retain mobility, but you have to take a break, and when you do this again, it has to be...”

“Normal? Softer? Lighter? Might as well not do it at all.”’

The doctor lowers his eyes.

“Think about it, Matsuoka san.”

 

He throws punches at the black leather bag. He kicks viciously. Inertia almost sends him tumbling back. His shrink told him to take up a sport. He picked kickboxing.

“Easy, rock star.”

Takeo, his trainer, lays a hand on his abused shoulder.

“Your phone’s been ringing for half an hour.”

_What now?_

“Makoto?”

“Rin, you won’t believe this...”

 

A commotion of police, cameras and people await outside the hospital. He drives the Huracan straight to the underground parking and sets out on a crazed dash up the stairs.

Endless cream-colored halls, intimidated staff.

“Where is he?”

He’s shouting, then shaking the nurse by the collar. It’s Sousuke that pulls him off the poor woman.

“Where is he? What’s going on? What happened to him?”

He’s crying. Sousuke braces his shoulders, then stirs him like a rag doll to a nearby bench.

“He’s... he’s alright, apparently, at least. Makoto’s with him.”

 

The thing with kidnapping is that after a while, shackles are not needed anymore. The mind becomes the prison. It was so much so that the monsters who took Haru would leave him alone at home, TV on and door unlocked.

“It was you, you idiot. You brought him back from the stupor. That song was always your song.”

“Our song?” Rin hissed between tears.

“He walked for three days straight, you know? Until he found the police station.”

 

Haru’s hair is short. An unruly mop that falls across his forehead and hides his beautiful eyes. He quietly listens to Makoto’s ramblings. The moment the door opens, his eyes dart from the window straight to Rin. Makoto falls silent. Tears run down Haru’s face. Everything blurs. He’s half perched on the hospital bed, legs tangled in tubes and wires. Arms around Haru, nose buried in the crook of his neck.

“I thought I’d lost you forever.”

 

Recovering from trauma is a lifetime endeavor. Haru is a resilient soul. He goes back to a semblance of normalcy in a matter of months.

The doomsday cult that abducted him by boat that night is uncovered, and all members arrested. Prison sentences are handed to them all. Haru is called to testify. It’s a worldwide hoohah. Haru stands dignified, even as he describes his ordeal detail by gritty detail.

They get back together, because everything else is unimportant, now that they have the possibility to share their lives again.

Rin sells the house by the sea, they move back to Tokyo.

 

“I shouldn’t have left you.”

“I shouldn’t have told you to leave.”

The mutual guilt over that night still plagues them. They talk it over. They talk to their counsellors. They breathe.

 

One day they are lounging in their home. Haru’s legs are thrown lazily over Rin’s and a blanket covers them both. A pile of old photo books rests on the coffee table. Rin pulls the one on the top and opens it over their laps. The album is filled with pictures from their early days.

“Shit! Nagisa in a dress! How could I forget this?”

“He looked good didn’t he?”

The next photo is of Sousuke, playing the bass in the studio, bare chested and long haired. Then there’s Makoto wrapped in a scarf, sipping tea from a paper cup, looking dejected and ill.

“He really thought he’d miss our first Tokyo gig...”

“Never seen him so stressed.”

Haru’s smile fades as he reads the implication of Rin’s sudden shudder.

 _You didn’t see how he was when you went missing_.

Rin squeezes a cold hand.

“And that’s us.”

On the photo, Rin is barely visible behind his massive drum kit. Haru is in the foreground, playing guitar, wearing platform boots and a long coat, his hair in a blue mohawk.

Haru traces the contours of their figures, sighing.

“We were pretty wild back then,” Rin says.

On the next page, the two of them are wearing the same clothes and hairstyles (Rin’s red hair was very long at the time, but he mostly kept it natural), but between them, arms wrapped around their shoulders, is Sousuke.

“It was all my fault.”

“Haru, no...”

_Not again._

“I provoked him. He wasn’t comfortable with us at the time.”

“Haru, he punched you. No one lays a hand on you. No one.”

“When they caught me and said all my life had been a sin, I really thought it was all my fault. I turned you into what you are. It was all because of me. If only I didn’t exist...”

“You turned me into what? Gay? I was never straight in the first place. Idiot.”

They laugh softly and interlace their fingers. Talking like this would have been a minefield a year prior, but progress has been made. Haru leans his head on Rin’s chest and turns another page. It’s a panoramic of their last show - before Rin fired Sousuke and Haru went missing.

“I’m glad you reunited the band for the Olympics. We all wanted it so much.”

“It was painful as hell without you.”

“I know.”

“All my aches and pains came back during rehearsals. I got the doctor to give me the jabs again. But wasn’t my joints I wanted to numb.”

“Rin.” They press tighter into each other. “Rin...”

“Hmm?”

“Let’s do it one more time.”

Rin’s cheeks flare red.

“A-are you sure? You’ll be sore...”

Haru laughs. First softly, then more openly.

“What?”

It’s hard to talk through the cackles. He takes a few deep breaths.

“I didn’t mean _that_... though I don’t mind that either...”

Rin eyes him curiously, a wine-colored brow arching up.

“Reunite the band. Let’s get everyone together again. You, me, Makoto, Nagisa... Sousuke. Even that guy that replaced me. We can take turns on guitar. Hell, we can write a duet for western _and_ Chinese violin. You are _that_ brilliant.”

“You’re pretty fired up.”

“So, what do you say?”

 

Go big or go the fuck home - seems to be the motto for their upcoming reunion.

Rin has commissioned a massive acrylic sakura tree for a backdrop. There’s an insane deal of pyrotechnics going on. In addition to their original line up, plus Rei, they will be joined by a chamber orchestra - because why the hell not? They are playing at the Olympic stadium again, but this time they are the main event.

 

All in their late thirties, but still fit enough to put on skimpy leather pants and look passable. Other than that, hair and clothes are kept understated -  black, mostly black, except for Haru’s blue silk changshan, that somehow survived the years in storage and was brought back to its former glory by skilled hands.

 

When the lights go out and the stage comes to live, Rin knows this is neither a swan song, nor an apex. They were big in their heyday, but they can be much bigger.

They play, they hug, they cry. Rin rides the arms of their fans, then comes back dizzy and dazzled into the arms of his friends. There’s one more song in the lineup - the one that’s always been theirs.

The crew pushes the piano to centre stage. Haru hands in the Fernandez and receives the erhu from the roadie. The others take their places.

Makoto brings the mike to his lips and announces, “Crying in deep red”, but as the first cords start to play, it’s clear that things are not going as rehearsed.

Rei walks forward with his violin and places a microphone on Haru’s hand. Makoto plops down on the piano stool and shoves Rin aside.

“Go. I know you sing this in the shower,” the vocalist whispers in his ear.

Rin finally stands and walks towards Haru. It feels oddly like walking down the aisle. The silly thought makes his chuckle.

 

Hours later, they read the barrage of online commentary on their performance. People go on about the harmony of their voices, the powerful chemistry between them.

“Rin, come, I ran you a bath.”

Haru’s voice is tired. He’s sporting deep dark circles under his blue eyes. Two years ago, Rin would not have believed if someone told him he’d be here now, hearing that voice, seeing that face.

The bath water is too warm for Haru’s personal taste, Rin knows that well. They go in together, nevertheless, settling in the narrow space, Rin’s chest pressed against Haru’s back.

“We should thank everyone properly for tonight.”

Haru is speaking in a definite tone that admits no retort.

“And then we should break it up for good.”

“Haru?”

Rin knows his body can’t keep up. He knows Haru shouldn’t be exposed to the public eye anymore. But the stage has a way to make you lust for it. Even when you’re playing so hard that you’re almost in a trance, even when things go wrong and everything hurts, it always finds a way to pull you back.

 

Their kiss has now gone viral. Two middle aged musicians, staging a comeback after years of hiatus, two beloved staples of Japanese sub culture, fathers of whatever movements people forged behind them, locking lips on stage like teenagers.

 

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

The bath water is pleasantly warm, enveloping his whole body. Haru’s fingers knead his shoulders.

 

“Ne, Haru, let’s start a band. You’re really good with the guitar, and every band needs a drummer, so I guess I’m in anyways...”

He scratches his neck and smiles - goes for cute because that’s his best shot. How else do you tell someone that you want to spend your whole life with them?

“I only have my uncle’s old guitar. Nobody uses those anymore.”

Rin makes a pained sound. Haru looks him over, the cocky little thing he is, all hair and pointy fangs.

“What kind of band?”

“A rock band, of course. The best in Japan. No, the world!”

Haru is thoughtful for a second. He picks at the rice in his lunch box, looks into the horizon, through the fence of their school rooftop.

“I’m in. But Makoto sings. Your singing is insufferable.”

The sun is bright, and Rin is ready to embrace the whole world.

“Let’s go to my place after school.”

And so their dream begins.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the love child of a brainstorming on discord and [We are X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMw1ObQuhNk), the 2016 documentary about X Japan.  
> "Crying in deep red" is the final line of X Japan's hit song [Kurenai](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orvxKLznP3M)
> 
> TW: mentions of kidnapping and PTSD


End file.
